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LibreOffice will be uncompromisingly free software, and as one developer observes, "it is hard to think of anyone of any note in the community that isn't involved," including developers from Red Hat and Debian. The hope is that OpenOffice / Libreoffice "will go where people want it to go, because it hasn't been going where people want it to. Initially the focus will be on cleaning up the code, adding polish and increasing usability." In the longer term, the project will be much more ambitious.

If LibreOffice takes off, which it has every chance of doing, the test for the developers will be to prove that a distributed free software development model not only gives the developers greater freedom and initiative, but also produces results.

It seems that so much of the important free software seems to end up in under the stewardship of a non-profit or not-for profit organization. The software might rattle around some corporations first, but when things get too corporate, a "foundation" springs up to save the day.

Hooray for The Document Foundation, and people who really care about the stewardship of free software projects.